THE MEKONG ELEPHANT PARK BLOG

MAE BOUNMA’S NEW LIFE​Back in the start of 2019, the Mekong Elephant Park found out about Mae Bounma, an elephant that spent a few previous years displayed on the side of the road, inactive and untaken care of, whilst her owners were trying to sell her. At Mekong Elephant Park, we want all elephants to live a happy and healthy life, and so rescuing Mae Bounma was our utmost priority at that time.​It is all thanks to the generosity of our visitors and our online community, through online donations, through direct donations, through visits to the park, through your help in spreading the words that Mae Bounma officially became a part of the Mekong Elephant Park family in August, 2019.

Mae Bounma is now strolling around, running, eating and bathing with our other elephants freely. Something she hasn't been accustomed to for a very long time.​She developed a very strong relationship with Mae Ping, just like sisters in a family. She respects the matriarch, Mae Kham. The 3 of them are always hanging around together, touching and cuddling. If we separate them, only even for 30 just minutes, they will make a lot of noise when reunited together again.

What is very difficult for female elephants whilst working in the logging industry is that they are forced to spend time very much alone. When Mae Bounma arrived at the Mekong Elephant Park, she was excitedly touching the other elephants and running between them as needed the extra closeness she did not have in the past years. We believe she must have missed bathing in the water when she was working, as she now spends a lot of her time just playing in the river.

Thanks again on her behalf for making her join us. You have made one heck of a happy elephant.

MAE PING & MAE BOUNMA'S REPRODUCTION PROJECTPurpose: Fighting against the threat of extinction of the Elephants in LaosIn recent years in Asia, the number and condition of elephants has worsened at a very alarming rate. Only 400 still live in the wild and 400 in captivity, in which only a small number of females are given the time and opportunity to breed, which had led to more elephants dying than calves being born (10 deaths for every birth). According to experts, Asian elephants are a species that will disappear in the years to come if no preventive action is taken.We believe it is essential for us to play our part to counter this threat. It is actually the reason why we have a conservation policy and project today.

At the Mekong Elephant Park lives Mae Ping and Mae Bounma, 2 females in the age of breeding that have now joined a reproduction program as nature cannot be left to act on its own. Indeed, attempting to get a female elephant pregnant is a step-by-step challenge. For the record, female elephants come into estrus (heat) with the ability to get pregnant only a few days every four months and it is through a clinical approach that one becomes aware of these very much crucial days. Furthermore, we are also challenged by the fact that captive elephants have, for some of them, lost their natural instincts making it even more challenging to read their hormonal pattern that is at times dormant.

So how are we acting and with what measures?Every Friday, a blood sample is taken from both Mae Bounma and Mae Ping. We then send the samples to Elephant Conservation Center, thanks to their support, for the biologists there to keep a regular reading of the elephants’ progesterone level.

By following this hormone, the ovulation cycle is determined and tracked allowing to know when the females are to be placed with a male elephant.

We have a male elephant at the park, Kham Khoun, which we hope will be a match to our females. He has an important role to play for the reproduction initiative to be a success and just as much a priority.At the Mekong Elephant Park, we make sure to provide our elephants with not only time with our valued visitors, but mostly time also where they can interact together as a herd to revive their natural bonding.

How can you help?Of course, we can’t do this without your help. Unlike Thailand, in Laos, no elephant sanctuary is supported by public subsidy. Your support would help contribute towards:

Help us by making a donation, visiting the park or simply sharing our story on social media. Any little help would be their best reward.

Let us make it happen!

IT’S A SUNNY DAY: MEKONG ELEPHANT PARK’S NEW SOLAR PANELS!​At the Mekong Elephant Park, we always strive to keep an environment-friendly habitat and sustainable living conditions both for our elephants and mahouts. It means accommodations built from natural materials, no single-use plastics, and so on. However, it also meant that in the past, we could not have electricity at the park, and as a result our mahouts had limited use of electrical devices, and all our food and fresh drinks have to be stored somewhere else.​That brings us to our exciting news: We now have solar panels and electricity for the first time for all the mahouts!

It's a very important moment for the mahouts and for the Mekong Elephant Park. With the slow disappearance of the logging industry and the ban on unethical elephant tourism, a lot of mahouts no longer saw profitability in training younger generations to become mahouts. The Mekong Elephant Park wants to show that working in a natural environment with elephants, and in preserving sustainable elephant tourism, is just as much rewarding. We believe that with this new installment at the park, we have achieved an opportunity for the development of a new generation of young and promising mahouts with equal life conditions than in their home villages.​The mahouts can now charge their phones, listen to music, and have a fan when the weather is hot. We hope this will help to convince their families to come to live with them full time as well.

Our mahouts using their electric water boiler

The other benefit from these solar panels is that we are now able to sell fresh drinks and fresh juices on site, for the ease of serving our customers.